Tag: school

The 2~3 weeks after writing my last blog post has been crazy. There were so many due dates, and so much content to go through everyday. But I’m here alive, went through no breakdowns, no sobbing at 4:00am, and no last minute studying which is good – better than before. Let’s just go with: improvement.

Me using the Pomodoro technique had it’s ups and downs, just as I predicted. Using this technique everyday turned out to be very tiring, and instead of effectively studying, I spent the time watching the clock, looking at the time left until I had my not-well-deserved break. This went for about a week, until I realized that giving myself time to rest was important.

Resting for about an hour, after I feel like I have worked a lot that day, feels very good, especially if your resting time involves a bed and you’re the one sleeping in it.

Did it work?

Yes, when I was motivated enough to use this technique. No, when I was burned out or just not motivated to use the app, making my day not productive at all. But I will definitely say that this technique did indeed reduce my procrastination when I used the app on my phone. Sadly, if not using this technique, I still procrastinate, and the rate of me absorbing the new material I need to learn goes down a lot. The evidence, is my log that I made at home:

This log was made right after the day I made my last blog post. It shows all the days I successfully implemented my technique with the color green, and red for all the days where I wasn’t motivated to implement this into my day.

Hopefully this table is only going to get longer, since using this technique seems like the best way to go. But before continuing straight on, I need to make some rules I can use to make my working periods more effective, and to avoid being burned out, or not motivated enough to open the app on my phone.

Will I continue?

Continuing the Pomodoro technique is only ideal, since I know that it’s the only thing holding myself together. At a time like this where my marks are the most important thing in high school, having a technique that I know that will work is very important.

Sadly, it’s my life in a nutshell. I’ve tried to change this meaning for a long time now, but it’s still the same.

In grade 8, I self-diagnosed myself as a procrastinator. I was suffering from a deadly disease: Procrastination. This disease to me is still incurable, and affects me most of the time when I arrive home. It rarely affects me during school, since I’m pretty productive around people who can judge my work ethics – but I can’t say the same thing when I arrive home.

Hours of lazing around turned into days lazing around, to months… to years.. And here I am now. A horribly diseased procrastinator who knows about her condition, but makes no effort to change it, cause – y’know, you can do it tomorrow.

So I was ecstatic when I heard that our blog was going to be about these kinda of topics, since then I could actually make an effort curing myself of procrastination.

Turn ‘Tomorrow’ into ‘Pomodoro’

catchy, no?

The strategy of my choice would be the Pomodoro technique. This technique consists of 25 min work periods, and 5 min break periods, all meshed together perfectly. I won’t lie, I’ve tried this method last month, with no result… There were too many distractions around me, and since it’s very comfortable at home, I wouldn’t be very efficient. So I went to the library, and the change in work stations increased my working efficiency! I got things done, but as a human, I got greedier, and wanted to increase my working efficiency to around 80%, while I was at 40-50%. This lead me to a burnout, and a cold since I gave myself no time to rest at all. The time I slept was 7 hours, but I was more tired than I was when I only slept for 4 hours last year. Waking up was a chore itself, and with huge black rings under my eyes, I would trudge myself to school.

But the Jaewon I know doesn’t give up that easily, and tries again. This weekend, I tried to implement one strict Pomodoro session, with 25 exact minutes of work and 5 minutes of actual break, racking up 2.5 hours per session. And to my delight, it worked. But to make sure I can pull this method out whenever I want to, and the rate of success of the session to be 100%, I need to practice. The end goal for me would probably be 100 hours of the session. I downloaded a Pomodoro app on my iPhone called: Focus Keeper, and this app will record how much time I actually spend doing work in the session.

Since going to the library everyday is a lot of work, I’ll go around 2 times a week, and stay at home the other days. After school, I usually take a one hour break, but I will shrink that to 30 minutes of settling into my work station, and then I will commence my Pomodoro session, at least two, at max three per day. This strategy will and is working well for me, as I’m writing this blog post in a Pomodoro session! It’s very efficient, and I can see myself loving this app more and more.

The critical moves would be to turn off the notifications from my phone, so there are no distractions constantly buzzing on my phone. As I get better and better at this, I’ll introduce myself to noise around me, to get used to distractions, since there are sounds and distractions around me in a normal day. My environment – my workplace would be spotless, as I tend to get distracted easily. You know what they all say: Clearing the clutter around you will clear up the clutter in your brain!! Well… At least that’s what I think it is…

School is definitely preparing me for my academic future, but not my actual future.
At school, we learn to connect with people, and share our ideas. Collaboration is an important part of our future, since there’s no job that is done all alone. But I feel like school doesn’t prepare us to live off as independent people. Tax, everything about credit, cooking, essentials to survive in the harsh world aren’t taught in school.

Even though school doesn’t prepare me for real life, a future after my education, school is a great place to learn about new technology. I was introduced to Khan Academy during middle school, and I am so glad my teacher decided to show us this amazing website. In high school, I stumbled upon Desmos, while looking for a graphing calculator for my homework. Desmos is a website, and an app that can be accessed offline, which was an amazing thing for a niner who had no data on her smartphone.

We’re centennials, who have been born when the technology era accelerated, but no, we aren’t robots that are all attracted to participate when technology is used.Just because a class is using technology, it doesn’t appeal to all the students. It all depends on the class and how the technology is being used.If I’m in a biology course, and the teacher uses power point rather than writing it all down on the chalkboard, yes- it’s more efficient and faster to get through material, but it wouldn’t affect how easy it is for me to learn the content.If we’re using the chalkboard to do coding, it’s way better to use the computer. By the time someone finishes writing out the code on the board, someone else would probably be done solving the problem,and 3 other questions on the computer.

But there is one technology I want to be used at school more often: Quizlet. It’s a well known piece of tech between students, but in my personal experience, not a lot of teachers know about it. In courses like biology, where you need to memorise a lot of definitions, quizlet is very good to use, since you can even access your flashcards offline. Teachers have an option to create a ‘teacher account’, and basically make a sharing bank for definitions or short problems. They can upload definitions themselves, or make the students form groups and share their definitions for a part of the chapter or unit.